NAVY divers have been repeatedly called in to search for unexploded bombs in the sea off a North-East holiday resort in recent weeks.

The move follows the washing up of live wartime munitions on beaches in the Saltburn area.

Five explosive devices have been recovered from the beaches in a month, ranging from a corroded artillery shell and rifle grenades to what could have been part of a wartime contact mine with a detonator still attached.

The Ministry of Defence's (MoD) Hydrographic Office yesterday revealed there are a number of wartime wrecks on the sea bed off Saltburn and they may have carried ammunition.

Army and Royal Navy bomb disposal teams have been called out in the past few weeks to finds at Redcar, Saltburn and Skinningrove.

Wrecks officer Nelson McEachan, of the Hydrographic Office, said: "Several of these vessels were sunk during wartime, and thus it is likely that they were armed with various deck guns and carried an amount of ammunition.

"Some, however, have no known identity.

"Vessel details are gleaned from standard reference books. However, they cannot be considered to be definitive. We are concerned with accurately charting the wrecks, not with their precise identities or cargo details."

Councillor David Walsh, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said: "They have identified nine wrecks lying within five miles of Saltburn pier, and of those wrecks at least four - and possibly more - were sunk in the first and second world wars.

"The Hydrographics Office can confirm that there are mystery wrecks whose origins are unknown.

"They have only identified cargoes on five vessels, and one of those was a ship that sank only in the last decade."

Coun Walsh said he will be asking Ashok Kumar, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, to contact the MoD in London to see if it can arrange a more detailed survey.

He also wants anyone with recollections or knowledge of munitions dumping off the Teesside coast after the Second World War to contact him at Redcar and Cleveland town hall, so he can pass the information to the MoD.

Fishermen's spokesman Dave Horsley last night welcomed calls for a fuller investigation.

He said: "We are navigating continuously - we have to. In getting round these wrecks, we navigate to within inches.

"It's not a constant worry, but it's a hazard we have to live with."

In his time at sea, Mr Horsley has caught three live wartime mines in his nets.

He estimates there are between 600 and 700 wrecks between ten and 20 miles off the Yorkshire coast, and 120 off the Tees bay, where, he says, there was a wartime naval gun range, with towed wrecks used as targets.